HUMN2070 First Nations and Criminal Justice - Professional Task - Assignment Help

Professional Writing Task (900 words)

You are required to write a report on an issue of your choosing (I am choosing Aboriginal Justice Agreements). The report should identify and discuss, from an organisational perspective (if possible), the involvement of communities within their chosen topic and the impact such involvement has at the community level. If no organisation has had involvement, then what changes has occurred as a result of the issue.

You can choose an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation or a mainstream organisation. 

The report should identify and discuss, from an organisational perspective, what they do in relation to the chosen topic. 

You should provide an overview of the chosen topic or background as well as including research that backs your claims. 

Examples of some Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations students may like to research and use are:

Family Violence and Djirra in Victoria

AnTAR and rights for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people (Aust. wide)

NATSILS and legal assistance (Aust. wide)

CCCYP - Children Commission for Children and Young People (Victoria, South Australia)

VALS - Balit Ngulu, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (Youth focused)

VACCA - Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (Vic)

NAAJA - North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NT specific)

NTCOSS - Northern Territory Council of Social Services (NT specific)

AbSec (NSW)

Deadly Connections (NSW)

Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Child Protection Peak (QATICPP)

Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (all states/territories) - ALSWA (Western Australia), ALSNSW (NSW and ACT), VALS (Vic), ATSILS (QLD ), TALS (Tasmania) and in South Australia their Aboriginal Legal Service is called: Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement (ALRM).

To give you some more context - this report is about researching an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation or mainstream organisation and identifying what role they have in relation to the criminal justice system. For example, if you are writing a report on Aboriginal women in prison, then Flat Out Inc. would be an organisation that assists women when they leave prison. What does this organisation do? How does their outreach occur. Is there any research on their success? Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations for women in prison include Djirra, VALS, NATSILS, or you could examine an example in WA (Ms Dhu) and research on the #FreeHer campaign and legislation that changed. Or Aunty Tanya Day and legislative changes around decriminalising the summary offence of public drunkenness. Or you can explore Aboriginal Protection Acts and work agreements and how there are now repaprtions in place to address Stolen Wages through compensation. 

Or if you choose to examine Aboriginal Courts, then you could look into VALS or the whole process of Koori Courts, what the benefits are, limitations, how were they established etc. 

This report should include examples of the issue being examined as well as scholarly research on the issue.

Writing a Report:

Introduction

Key points/recommendations/concepts. 

The body should include an overview of your chosen topic and/or key concepts. You can take this report in so many ways, so the flow of the report is purely individually written.

You should also, if possible or if there has been, explore what the community response was. Look for Media articles to find information on this and make sure you reference the author of the media article.

Changes to the criminal justice system (if any). Look at the statistical data around imprisonment, recidivism, arrest rates etc and use these to prove your argument. You can use the Australian Bureau of Staistics, Australian Institute of Criminology, crime statistics Victoria, NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Data (BOCSAR),  The Australian Law Reform Commission, NT Police, Fire and Emergency Services, WA Corrective Services - any government organisation that collates the data needed in relation to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people and the criminal justice system or health.

Conclusion 

This will be due 16th September at 23:59pm

There is a 10% Leeway applied to this assessment.

Please try and have at least 6 to 7 references and make sure you have at least 4 to 5 academic sources. Do not rely solely on Media articles.

Tips for the assessment regarding terminology:

There is a number of ways that Aboriginal people are titled. However, there can be ways that we are written about that can or are offensive.

As a (personal) general rule, I always write Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. Always capitalise the first letter in each: Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander etc.

Please never shorten to the acronym. Using it (which I will not be, so I am hoping you all understand what I am talking about), is really offensive as we are more than an acronym and it limits the diversity of cultures, implying that we are a monculture. Plus, it is just lazy writing. However, when you are using an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation, and they shorten their title to an acronym - please feel free to use it as they do. For example - VALS, ATSILS, NATSILS etc. 

Thanks to Pauline Hanson, the term Indigenous should try to be avoided, as it means someone born of the place. So, anyone born in this country is Indigenous. 

Please avoid adding Australian to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander as this too, comes across as insensitive to the past treatment. By this, it continues the ownership of us by Australia, which is a colonial name for this country and most Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people do not identify with being Australian due to colonisation.

Please refrain from pluralising Aboriginal. For example: Aboriginals - reasons are similar to why it is inappropriate to use the acronym.

If you are talking about a particular Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person, research who their mob is and use that, in lieu of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

****Please note***** 

When you are using a direct quote, you must use the words exactly as they are written, which means that everything I have stated above is void.

Please make sure your spelling is correct, and as I have already stated, capitalise the first letter of each word - again, unless you are using a direct quote.

Referencing

Creative Spirits/ Korff Citing

PLEASE!!!!!!!! - and I am absolutely BEGGING you all, NOT to use Korff/Creative Spirits as a source of research. Korff was a German Tourist, who used Aboriginal knowledge and made this website. He has made money from exploiting Aboriginal Elders and has absolutely NO authority, whatsoever, to be using this knowledge for his own personal gain. Try and find Aboriginal scholars and centre their research, voice and knowledge as the topics are primarily focused on Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people - so "nothing about us, without us".

I do have to apologise to the students who did use this as a source in the first assessment, as I thought I had included this reference tip, but I can clearly see I didn't. To save me going back through 160 assessments, please email me if you did use this source in your reflection, as it is not fair to be deducted marks for something I failed to relay/explain. 

Final Reference List

Make sure your final reference list in alphabetical order, commencing with the Author's (first author, if there are multiple scholars) surname first. Furthermore, try and find the author if citing a media article rather than using the name of the Media organisation. This applies to in-text citations as well as your final reference list.